So the date is pretty much set now. She’ll be released on Thursday the 22nd and finally return home. A home visit with a worker from the rehab center will happen next week to determine what she will need to live possibly in a wheelchair for a bit until she can get back up on her feet. I’ll be going back up to stay with her and help her get back into the swing of things, but she is really excited to end her streak of days in the hospital!
Her progress has been good everyday. Little by little she has gotten stronger. Getting up out of the wheelchair is still not quite there, but day before yesterday she walked with a walker, and has been walking with the aid of the parallel bars daily.
Just a quite note here. The room number has changed again, and she is now in room 6100 (still at the Sutter Roseville Rehab center). She was previously in the room across the hall from the nurses station, and apparently they needed that room for another patient who repeatedly tried to escape from bed!
Everything is going well and we are most likely just a couple weeks away from her getting to go home! We have a conference on Monday in which I’m expecting to get more details about when exactly she might get out and what kind of help she is going to need while at home.
So I’ll be heading home once again. She is in excellent hands here at this facility and things are still improving daily. Today she gets her cath out which is good for a couple reasons. Her kidneys have rebounded and no longer need dialysis, and also the fact that removing it will lessen the chance of infection. She will be on a regular schedule of physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy. She has already stood up with the aid of a machine and sits several hours in a wheelchair each day. I will be returning when it is almost time for her to go home, to get some training from the staff on how to help her with any needs she might have. She will be much stronger before she leaves, but not yet fully recovered. if I get any other news (from Edie) I will continue to pass it along!
This morning at 9:00 AM she took yet another ambulance ride, this time to the rehab center that will be her last stop before home. We are very excited to leave that last place which is light years behind this place in terms of newness, staffing, technology and physical therapy programs!!
The new address is 6 Medical Plaza Roseville, CA and her room number is 6106.
This facility is built for rehabbing patients and getting them back home, which is a big difference from the last place where she laid in bed about 85-90% of the time. First thing after they got her situated here, they moved her into a wheel chair and we went to the lunch room for a meal. At this facility, all meals are eaten in the lunch room… no laying in bed to eat. I also heard something about 3 hours of physical therapy a day, so that plus the getting up for meals is going to have her out of bed quite a bit. This should make things progress a lot faster and get her home much sooner.
Her spirits are still high and she is more than ready to put in the work to get the hell out of the hospital!
So Kat and I just got back up here yesterday afternoon and got to spend some time with her catching up. Seems there has been quite a bit of progress since i last was here. First off, she moved rooms again, so her new room # is 115b. She has spent an hour in a chair once a day for the last two days and this will probably continue to help her build up her strength. Her upper body (arms, hands) seem very strong compared to the last time I saw her. They do a bit of physical therapy with her, having her stand up, sit down (and repeat) with the aid of the staff, but she says there is not a whole lot of sessions going on. Edie is working to get her moved to Sutter Roseville which is supposed to have an excellent physical therapy program. The catch there was that they only do dialysis in chairs, so she would have to be able to sit in a chair for the 3 hours that it takes to complete dialysis… which bring us to the next bit of good news…
She is now making urine on her own! They are still doing dialysis, but mainly just to make sure her blood is clean and clear of toxins. They are no longer needing to take fluid off of her body, as it is passing on its own now. Soooo they expect she may only have a few more sessions of the dialysis total!!
The other big topic that everyone is constantly asking about is her voice. Yesterday the speech therapist came in and did some exercises with her and actually got some audible sounds out of her. For the most part she just speaks with a whipser, but i seems like it won’t be long before something more than that starts coming out. The problem was explained that her vocal chords were irritated and aren’t closing off when she attempts to talk. this results in most of her breath just passing right through and thus making her voice very breathy. What needs to happen is for her vocal chords to kinda close off and bump into each other to make the sound. This is what happened a few times yesterday and she was super excited to hear something real come out of herself!
All in all, this visit is already way more uplifting than I imagined it would be. Her spirits are night and day different, and its nice to see her laughing and have a smile on her face!
More good news from Edie today. There was a bit of an issue with discomfort from an uncomfortable bed, but today she was moved into a new room with an air mattress. Her new room number is 105a. She stood up today, with a person on each side of her, but standing is a huge step so that was great to hear. Edie also spoke with the speech therapist and learned that it will take some time for her voice to come back, but her lack in that department is not permanent. Apparently some noise (other than whisper) is coming out now, but she still can’t quite fully talk.
Just wanted to send a special thank you to everyone who has made some time to stop by and see my mom while I can’t be there with her. She may not openly admit that she likes having visitors, but I could definitely see a little spark in her eye when someone came to visit her!
Big news today as Mady is moving to an intermediate rehab center and out of the hospital (finally)! They are taking her to Kindred Rehab in Folsom. When I get more details about room numbers, visiting hours, etc. i will pass them along on this site.
As for a status update, there has not been much different (that I have heard anyway). She has been continuing the every-other-day dialysis and the physical therapy daily and actually sat up in a chair to have her lunch the last couple days. Obviously she is progressing in terms of strength and general health as signified by the transfer to this intermediate facility.
Not much to report other than some things passed along to me (since i’m still back at home). Things seem to be progressing as far as the dialysis and physical therapy. She was on the move again today, moving to room 308A on the third floor (one floor closer to the exit as Kat says)! Greg said she will now be sharing a room with someone else, and all of this tells me that she is getting even closer to not needing the attention of the hospital staff.
OK, so updates may be a little choppy for the next couple of weeks as I am leaving to go back home today. I am looking at being back up here after a couple weeks, but need to get home and take care of some business. Greg will be coming over the weekend and Lucy will be here on Monday to stay the whole week and of course Edie is here as well, so between them we are covered for awhile as far as having someone here with her. I will get updates from whoever is here and post them as I can.
As far as everything else goes, she is still progressing. The dialysis for today is just about to finish up so her next treatment will be on Saturday. Yesterday I spoke with the case manager about the next steps and there are some options. The most likely at this point is having her transferred to a specialized nursing facility where she will still get the care she needs (physical therapy, dialysis) but will not technically be in a hospital as she will no longer require that type of monitoring. Milestones they have set for her are walking before she starts the chemo medicine, and she needs to at the very least be able to tolerate sitting in a chair for 3-4 hours before she goes anywhere because they do dialysis in a chair, not a bed in the specialized nursing facility. So there are some goals out there. I was told that she is on a list for the Sutter Roseville facility which I have heard is very nice and has great programs, so they will be evaluating her daily until she is well enough to move on.
Everything else seems to be improving daily, so while its still hard to leave, it seems like she is doing well enough that I won’t have to worry about her! Yesterday physical therapy worked her out twice and there was an attempt at standing up on her own. She didn’t quite make it but it may take some time before her legs get strong enough as its hard to work them out while in a bed all day. Thanks to everyone who sent cards, flowers, balloons, etc. Her room is nice and bright now and she is enjoying the gifts.